OCZ ARC 100 (240GB) SSD Review
by Kristian Vättö on August 26, 2014 7:00 AM ESTRandom Read/Write Speed
The four corners of SSD performance are as follows: random read, random write, sequential read and sequential write speed. Random accesses are generally small in size, while sequential accesses tend to be larger and thus we have the four Iometer tests we use in all of our reviews.
Our first test writes 4KB in a completely random pattern over an 8GB space of the drive to simulate the sort of random access that you'd see on an OS drive (even this is more stressful than a normal desktop user would see). We perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time.
Random speeds show a small decrease in performance over the other OCZ drives, which is due to the combination of the slower M10 controller and A19nm NAND.
Sequential Read/Write Speed
To measure sequential performance we run a 1 minute long 128KB sequential test over the entire span of the drive at a queue depth of 1. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire test length.
In sequential performance the ARC 100 seems to be more optimized for read performance as that is up compared to the Vector 150 and Vertex 460, but in turn the write speed has decreased slightly.
AS-SSD Incompressible Sequential Read/Write Performance
The AS-SSD sequential benchmark uses incompressible data for all of its transfers. The result is a pretty big reduction in sequential write speed on SandForce based controllers, but most other controllers are unaffected.
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mapesdhs - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
So when Intel had its 8MB bricked-SSD problem, why weren't they villified by everyone andhence all trust lost?
The concept of trust for a technical product is bizarre. Either it works within a set range of
specs & requirements, or it doesn't. OCZ makes a bunch of models that work very well
indeed (Vertex4, Vector, etc.), yet people act and post comments as if that's not true,
which is just dumb IMO.
Ian.
hojnikb - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
Not to mention all the issues sandforce based drives had.LB-ID - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
(checks the manufacturer)Yup, still OCZ. If I want to be a beta-tester for an unreliable and unscrupulous company, I'd go volunteer to be a guinea pig for someone contracting for the NSA. No thank you, never again.
Caveat emptor.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
QED, more pointless FUD.Ian.
jsntech - Tuesday, August 26, 2014 - link
There are probably 'good' reasons for it, but I really chuckle every time I think about Toshiba buying a brand name with a history of unreliable products and bad customer support, and then rebranding brand new tech with that tainted name.For the love of pete, why why why?
Oh well. Best of luck to Toshiba, but I personally will never again buy anything on earth with 'OCZ' in the name.
kyuu - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
This logic is silly. You explicitly acknowledge that it is merely the same label on what is largely a different company, but you refuse to buy anything with the label because... reasons?Granted, it was a poor choice by Toshiba to keep the OCZ branding, but I wager Toshiba management was unaware of how that brand was perceived when the decision was made. They probably thought they were appealing to an existing consumer-base who were loyal to the OCZ name or something.
But still, refusing to judge the product by its own merits (of which it seems to have a great deal, as long as you're not looking to use it in a laptop) but instead by the (now largely meaningless) label? Just seems silly to me.
melgross - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
If Toshiba was unaware of the problems with OCZ's realizability and bad reputation, then Toshiba is incompetent. There is no way that a company would buy one that going bankrupt without doing the due diligence first. If they did, they would have seen all the problems. So what you are saying is no excuse.But then, toshiba's reputation for SSD's isn't that great to begin with, so maybe they don't care.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
And exactly what reliability/reputation issues are you referring to? Because they apply
to the later products at all, hence all this sort of posting does is perpetuate what is now
a thoroughly out of date attitude. Hardly surprising OCZ went bust when self-sustaining
FUD posting keeps putting people buying what are actually really good products. I'd
happily buy more Vertex4s if they were still available at a sensible price. The only thing
that puts me off certain models much of the time, from any manufacturer, is price. In the
past 2 years, prices fluctuated wildly in a manner that left the Vector series costing far
too much vs. the competition, which is a shame given the good quality of the product.
What blows my mind is the way people who moan on and on about quality, reliability,
etc., are the same zoids who are so quick to recommend today's budget models like
the MX100 to someone for whom reliability is a priority - total contradiction.
Ian.
mapesdhs - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
(typo in 1st sentence, I meant to write, "...they don't apply to the later products at all, ..."Still unable to edit posts on this site??)
seapeople - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link
If you've been burned by a Ford Pinto before, then it makes sense that you wouldn't want to buy a new Pinto, even if they tell you it's a complete redesign. Whether it makes sense or not, that's why Ford was smart enough to get rid of the Pinto name...